The Massacre of the Innocents

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted The Massacre of the Innocents around 1565-67, ostensibly depicting King Herod's biblical order to kill all male infants in Bethlehem, but setting it unmistakably in a contemporary Flemish village under attack by foreign soldiers. The painting is widely interpreted as a commentary on the brutal Spanish military occupation of the Netherlands under the Duke of Alba. The Royal Collection version may be one of several versions, with some scholars debating which is the prime original.

Bruegel populates a snow-covered village scene with dozens of figures engaged in acts of violence and despair, all rendered with his characteristic precise, miniaturist technique. The winter landscape creates a stark, cold atmosphere that intensifies the brutality of the scene.